Governing synergies and trade-offs with SDG15 in Ethiopia: a local-to-global study of landscape restoration in Lake Tana sub-basin

In the Lake Tana sub-basin in the Ethiopian highlands, agricultural expansion, overgrazing, and fuelwood collection have led to ongoing deforestation and soil erosion. Land degradation threatens food security and impacts water quantity and quality downstream. This combination of challenges, that reinforce each other, makes the Lake Tana sub-basin an important and relevant case study for understanding how integrative landscape management and restoration may address multiple SDGs at once and such an approach is linked to national and international levels of decision-making. This PhD project focuses on trade-offs and synergies between SDGs and how they are addressed in landscape restoration policies and practices in the lake Tana area, Ethiopia. This PhD project takes a local-to-global approach, starting from the actions of local actors, to trace how their role in landscape restoration and governance shapes, and is shaped by, national and international actors. Specifically, you will study how and to what extent an integrative landscape management and governance is able to address interactions between various SDGs. While you will have a strong focus on forest conservation and reforestation, you will equally give attention to food, water quality and quantity, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. Moreover, you will explore how local recipients of donor funds and local private actors (i.e. farmers, industry) interact with national government, international donors, and other relevant actors and policy platforms. This PhD will be conducted alongside another PhD candidate who is studying the governance of synergies and trade-offs in Ethiopian landscape restoration from a global to local perspective.